The “NACA NEWS” is the voice of the National Animal Control Association. I’m on the mailing list and sometimes send them articles, drawing on my past in the Seventies as the first female animal control officer in Portland, Oregon. In advance of each issue the NACA NEWS asks for contributions and suggests a theme. This time they said “We are looking for interesting and informative articles for our NACA News readers to enjoy and learn from covering topics related to the Animal Control/Care field, to include product reviews, NACA member profiles, the technical aspects of Animal Control/Care work, or even something humorous pertaining to your experiences in the field or shelter. The theme for our upcoming November/December issue is ‘Caring for Ourselves.’”
As it happens, Mike Burgwin, who was my boss at animal control (and one of the best bosses I ever had) is here in Valier on a visit. Mike is the one who originally thought up NACA and was the force behind it for a long time until the PETA huggers took the helm and painted everything pink. (I’m speaking symbolically.) Mike is not pink except for the top of his head which has long ago stopped being fuzzy. He’s just not a pastel kinda guy. His wife, Lorna, is with him, for which we are all grateful since she’s a calming influence. But the inside of Mike's head is never fuzzy.
Since we were retelling all the old war stories of thirty years ago, I brought up this subject of “caring for ourselves.” We reflected on the murder of an animal control officer a year or so ago, which sobered the entire national ACO community, and tried to understand what might have happened.
And we discussed the videotape of the incident in Sacramento when a young black female ACO was attacked by a pit bull that ripped her bosom to bloody shreds -- the dog was trying for her throat but couldn’t quite jump high enough. It was on tape because a TV station cameraman was on a ridealong and it took him a few minutes to realize she needed help. Then he picked up a club and knocked down the dog while its owner, a blimp of a woman in a muumuu and hair curlers screamed futile commands in the background.
Mike said that when that tape was passed around -- it was before YouTube had been invented -- he was still in the business (he’s eighty now) and decided he’d better do something about this. He called up some police dog trainers to help his officers learn how to cope. Each of his officers suited up in the big padded outfits the trainers used and had a dog sent to attack. He said that the first time it happened, the ACO never even saw the dog coming. The second time they tried it, they got ONE snapshot in their head before the dog hit. The third time they got two or three quick impressions. By the fourth time they were seeing the dog through the whole launch arc and acting fast enough to defend themselves. But this lesson has to be repeated every few months or it won’t stick. No one has the time and resources to do that.
It was Mike who told us long ago about commando training when guard dogs were expected during WWII. The men were taught to listen for the rush of the dog when they were operating in the night (no night-vision goggles in those days) and how to estimate where the dog’s front legs might be when it jumped. Then they tried to grab a leg and twist hard, which might break a leg and at least threw the dog on the ground hard enough to knock with wind out of it. No small town is going to provide that kind of training. Which is part of the reason NACA provides regional training institutes where a small town MIGHT be able to send officers.
This is extreme. It might never happen in an ACO’s entire career. But it is also an illustration of a pattern that is constant and erosive in any emergency responder’s life. Nothing happens except boring repetition for many days, weeks, months. Then suddenly there is an instant emergency of great danger that demands quick reflexes and good judgment.
We all focus on how to respond to that emergency. But healthwise it is often the long boring stretches that are harder on the body. To stay awake, many a cop or EMT or ACO mainlines coffee. Since you’re in the coffee shop, it’s a temptation to have a donut. Famously. Pretty soon the weight has piled on, the belt is tight, the reflexes are a little sluggish, and when the heart rate is shot up by a slug of adrenaline, your body might easily blow a gasket or throw a clot. Cigarettes aggravate the situation. Now you have no wind, either for escaping or chasing. (As though anyone ever caught a dog by chasing!) And Diabetes II raises its ugly head. It’s a long soft sweet lethal emergency.
Besides a little self-discipline, one of the best way to take care of oneself is simply to stay alert and the best way to stay alert is to stay aware of details. Officers joke about checking a yard for large well-gnawed bones and large-bore excrement before casually opening the gate, but there’s truth in the joke. Of course, the biggest danger is generally not the dog but the dog-owner.
Last night we watched “China Moon,” a slightly old-fashioned crime noir film featuring Ed Harris and Benicio Del Toro. The idea is that Ed is a veteran cop with a rookie partner and Ed lectures the rookie about being bored. “If you really paid attention,” says Ed. “You wouldn’t be bored.” This doesn’t just apply to emergency responders, it’s one of the more vital bits of advice about life in general. It doesn’t help Ed -- this IS a noir! But it might make a big difference for an ACO.
1 comment:
My grandfather was a born and bred dog man, both coon hounds and town mutts. As you know, Mary, that sort of cradle-to-grave association gives you a sixth sense when it comes to dogs. You get past seeing and hearing them, to a sense of their energy, what they are feeling, etc. Grandpa has had several attacks on him by stray or mad dogs at various times, sometimes the hard knee strike to the breast bone worked, and a couple of times he punched the leaping dog right in the nose, which broke it and put the dog out cold.
See, people don't get you can really love and know an animal and defend it to the death, but if it goes bad, well old-school style said you put down your own dog if it attacked and bit someone. Even if you love a dog, if it aggressively attacks and bites someone, especially someone like a kid or elderly person, well, you put it down yourself. That's what they did in the old days in rural days. An honorable and responsible man shoots his own dog in those cases.
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